Page 224 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"They're going to Houston on November twenty-first," Dennis replied. "And then, the next day, they'll go to Dallas."

CHAPTER THIRTY

Maria Summers was watching on TV, in the White House press office, as Air Force One touched down in brilliant sunshine at the Dallas airport called Love Field.

A ramp was maneuvered into place at the rear door. Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, took up their positions at the foot of the ramp, waiting to greet the president. A chain-link fence kept back a crowd of two thousand.

The aircraft door opened. There was a suspenseful pause, then Jackie Kennedy emerged, wearing a Chanel suit and a matching pillbox hat. Right behind her was her husband, Maria's lover, President John F. Kennedy. Secretly, Maria thought of him as Johnny, the name his brothers occasionally used.

The television commentator, a local man, said: "I can see his suntan all the way from here!" He was a novice, Maria guessed: although the television picture was monochrome he failed to tell his audience the colors of things. Every woman watching would have been interested to know that Jackie's outfit was pink.

Maria asked herself whether she would change places with Jackie, given the chance. In her heart Maria yearned to own him, to tell people she loved him, to point to him and say: "That's my husband." But there would be sadness as well as pleasure in the marriage. President Kennedy betrayed his wife constantly, and not just with Maria. Although he never admitted it, Maria had gradually realized that she was only one of a number of girlfriends, maybe dozens. It was hard enough to be his mistress and share him: how much more painful it must be to be his wife, knowing that he was intimate with other women, that he kissed them and touched their private parts and put his cock in their mouths every chance he got. Maria had to be content: she got what a mistress was entitled to. But Jackie did not have what a wife was entitled to. Maria did not know which was worse.

The presidential couple descended the ramp and began to shake hands with the Texas bigwigs waiting for them. Maria wondered how many of the people who were so pleased to be seen with Kennedy today would support him in next year's election--and how many were already planning, behind their smiles, to betray him.

The Texas press was hostile. The Dallas Morning News, owned by a rabid conservative, had in the past two years called Kennedy a crook, a Communist sympathizer, a thief, and "fifty times a fool." This morning it was struggling to find something negative to say about the triumphant tour by Jack and Jackie. It had settled for the feeble STORM OF POLITICAL CONTROVERSY SWIRLS AROUND KENNEDY ON VISIT. Inside, however, there was a pugnacious full-page advertisement paid for by "the American Fact-Finding Committee" with a list of sinister questions addressed to the president, such as: "Why has Gus Hall, head of the U.S. Communist Party, praised almost every one of your policies?" The political ideas were about as stupid as could be, Maria thought. Anyone who believed that President Kennedy was a secret Communist had to be certifiably insane, in her opinion. But the tone was deeply nasty, and she shivered.

A press officer interrupted her thoughts. "Maria, if you're not busy . . ."

She was not, evidently, since she was watching television. "What can I do for you?" she said.

"I want you to run down to the archives." The National Archives building was less than a mile from the White House. "Here's what I need." He handed her a sheet of paper.

Maria often wrote press releases, or at least drafted them, but she had not been promoted to press officer: no woman ever had. She was still a researcher after more than two years. She would have moved on long ago, were it not for her love affair. She looked at the list and said: "I'll get on it right away."

"Thanks."

She took a last glance at the television. The president moved away from the official party and went to the crowd, reaching over the fence to shake hands, Jackie behind him in her pillbox hat. The people roared with excitement at the prospect of actually touching the golden couple. Maria could see the Secret Service men she knew well trying to stay close to the president, hard eyes scanning the throng, alert for trouble.

In her mind she said: Please take good care of my Johnny.

Then she left.

*

That morning George Jakes drove his Mercedes convertible out to McLean, Virginia, eight miles from the White House. Bobby Kennedy lived there with his large family in a thirteen-bedroom white-painted brick house called Hickory Hill. The attorney general had scheduled a lunch meeting there to discuss organized crime. This subject was outside George's area of expertise, but he was getting invited to a wider range of meetings as he became closer to Bobby.

George stood in the living room with his rival Dennis Wilson, watching the TV coverage from Dallas. The president and Jackie were doing what George and everyone else in the administration wanted them to do, charming the socks off the Texans, chatting with them and touching them, Jackie giving her famous irresistible smile and extending a gloved hand to shake.

George glimpsed his friend Skip Dickerson in the background, close to Vice President Johnson.

At last the Kennedys retreated to their limousine. It was a stretched Lincoln Continental four-door convertible, and the top was down. The people were going to see their president in the flesh, without even a window intervening. Texas governor John Connally stood at the open door wearing a white ten-gallon hat. The president and Jackie got into the rear seat. Kennedy rested his right elbow on the edge, looking relaxed and happy. The car pulled away slowly, and the motorcade followed. Three buses of reporters brought up the rear.

The convoy drove out of the airport and onto the road, and the television coverage came to an end. George switched off the set.

It was a fine day in Washington, too, and Bobby had decided to have the meeting outside, so they all trooped through the back door and across the lawn to the pool patio, where chairs and tables had been set out ready. Looking back toward the house, George saw that a new wing had been built. It was not finished, for some workmen were painting it, and they had a transistor radio playing, its sound a mere susurration at this distance.

George admired what Bobby had done about organized crime. He had different government departments working together to target individual heads of crime families. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics had been gingered up. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had been enlisted. Bobby had ordered the Internal Revenue Service to investigate mobsters' tax returns. He had got the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport those who were not citizens. It all amounted to the most effective attack ever on American crime.

Only the FBI let him down. The man who should have been the attorney general's staunchest ally in the fight, J. Edgar Hoover, stood aloof, claiming there was no such thing as the Mafia, perhaps--George now knew--because the Mob was blackmailing him over his homosexuality.

Bobby's crusade, like so much that the Kennedy administration did, was disdained in Texas. Illegal gambling, prostitution, and drug use were popular among many leading citizens. The Dallas Morning News had attacked Bobby for making the federal government too powerful, and argued that crime should remain the responsibility of local law enforcement authorities--who were mostly incompetent or corrupt, as everyone knew.

The meeting was interrupted when Bobby's wife, Ethel, brought out lunch: tuna sandwiches and chowder. George looked at her with admiration. She was a slim, attractive woman of thirty-five, and it was hard to believe that four months ago she had given birth to their eighth child. She was dressed with the understated chic that George now recognized as the trademark of the Kennedy women.

A phone beside the pool rang and Ethel picked it up. "Yes," she said, and she carried the phone on its long lead to Bobby. "It's J. Edgar Hoover," she said.

George was startled. Was it possible that Hoover knew they were discussing organized crime without him, and was calling to reprimand them? Could he have bugged Bobby's patio?

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